Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-09-01
PIXIES PEAK LIGHTNING.

How Signal Observer Had His Finger Tips
Atiame in an Electrical Storm.
Sergt. Luther NJ Dey, now in the signal
service In Philadelphia, spent year for
the government at Pixies peak. His ex-
periences there must be as interesting to
scientists as to the general public, for
they are unlike any ever published about
that monarch of American mountains.
Il was in the signal service house on
the summit when lightning telegraphed
itself up the mountain and struck the
building he said recently.
''The wire was grounded five feet from
the west wall. The bolt plowed a furrrow
from the end of the wire to the stone wall
two feet thick, and tore out of it a hole
eighteen inches square. Then it flashed
around the room, melted and ruined some
of our instruments, and went out of the
east window. The air seemed full of
electricity at the time, but not one of US
was injured.
'Not long afterward / saw the most
wonderful electrical storm | have ever
heard of. The atmosphere had appeared
loaded with electricity all one afternoon.
There was singing sound in the air, as
If the whole universe was a great hive
of bees. When the sun went down | saw
thousand jets of electric flame rising
from the wire down the mountain. /
went outdoors. My hair rose up. My
mustache poked into my nose. [ took
my hands from my pockets and electric
flames two inches long started from each
finger tip. When l held them down the
flames disappeared. l walked up and
down with my hands in the air, as ex-
cited as child. When I came under the
telegraph wire the flames went out where
l was and disappeared before and behind
me. This storm lasted half an hour"
But from Sergt Dey's talk there are
real dangers on the mountain. Once in
winter time he descended the great crater,
for Pixies peak is an extinct volcano.
Half way down the side of the crater
he slipped, and in moment shot sever
al hundred feet along the slippery surface
of loose snow, saving himself by catching
on bowlder. The snow was very deep,
and far down the mountain he saw
tracks of mountain lions. After
hours of awful suffering and struggling
in snowbanks, he reached the trail and
got back to the station.
"The house has walls two feet thick"
continued Sergt. Dey. "There are sever
al rooms one for instruments, one for
sleeping, and two used as a storeroom
and Kitchen respectively. The roof is
anchored down by great cables, to brace
it against the wind, which is terrible,
sometimes blowing one hundred miles an
hour. Six months provisions and six
months supply of wood are taken up
every fall from timber line. The peak
is ten miles from Manitou and seventeen
from Colorado Springs"
But" said the sergeant, lighting his
pipe again, "the view from the station
was magnificent. We could see the smoke
of Denver, the City of Pueblo, and the
trains on the plains twenty miles away,
very clearly. We could see in Old Mexico
the Spanish peaks, capped with snow,
and glistening like knights in armor, $50
miles away. More than a dozen times
we have looked far, far down below US at
thunder-storms raging in sea of black
clouds.
"Let me tell you word of poor Capt.
Crevin. He vas friind of Gen. Hazen,
and came west for his health. He was
Manxman, and on the peak in the govern
ment service. The doctors say he died
of boil in the lungs, a very rare disease.
Life on the peak is lonely. There are
few birds and animals. Bears are seen
occasionally, and vultures, and the mlser-
able, gastly-looking Rocky mountain
magpies and thrushes. It SHOWS every
month in the year. Once in a while
royal eagle scars over the range. The
atmosphere is SO rare up there that the
men of the signal office have to spend one
month on the summit, Ia, $50 feet above
sea, and then one month 1000 feet lower,
at Colorado Springs"
Pixies peak is the highest N ountain in
the world on which civilized men live all
the year round.